The circular economy journey

ON THE JOURNEY TO

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

ROADS & INFRASTRUCTURE SPEAKS TO AINSLEY SIMPSON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE SUSTAINABILITY COUNCIL, ABOUT THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF EMBEDDING CIRCULAR ECONOMY, WHILE REFLECTING ON DISCUSSIONS FROM THE COUNCIL’S CONNECT CONFERENCE IN MAY, 2021.

When representatives from the infrastructure and transport authorities gathered to discuss ‘Building a Circular Economy’ at the Infrastructure Sustainability Council Connect Conference earlier this year, their views seemed to resonate most around one idea: That embedding circular economy into roads and infrastructure projects goes beyond reuse and re-purposing of waste material. Rather it requires a fundamental shift in the way infrastructure projects are planned, even before the tender process begins.

In her role as Deputy Director General at the Department of Transport and Main Roads Queensland, Amanda Yeates is responsible for the delivery of about $4.5 billion worth of infrastructure program for transport in Queensland, which equates to around 4000 projects at any given time. Sharing an example of a project three years ago, one of the first on which the Department had consulted with the Infrastructure Sustainability Council, Ms Yeates demonstrated how better social, economic and environmental outcomes could be driven by sending the right signals to the market.

“There was an example on the Bruce Highway in Queensland where we sent a signal to the market and said that we were going to put a 60 per cent weighting on the environmental criteria in the tender process. I had many of the contracting partners ring me up and ask whether there was a typo in the tender. They thought maybe we meant six per cent. I said no, we definitely meant 60 per cent,” she said.

The project, as she further explained, benefited from this strict consideration as the winning tender ended up performing

Ainsley Simpson, CEO, the Infrastructure Sustainability Council.

better than standard with regards to erosion and sediment control during the heavy rainfall season.

“Now that cost us about four per cent above what our tender construction estimate was, and we went ahead with that. But what happened was because our controls were so good, when we did get that heavy weather, the project wasn’t shut down for anywhere near as long as what it would have been, had we done something traditional. We also ended up finishing that job six months ahead of schedule and that was a saving of $143 million,” she added.

A BROADER WAY OF THINKING Tony Aloisio, Director of Ecologiq – a Victorian Government initiative to optimise the use of local recycled and reused materials in government infrastructure – also noted that the definition of circularity eventually needs to move beyond materials recycling.

“I think the definition of circularity needs to move beyond the materials to a broader way of thinking, and that is about regenerative design,” he said.

“It’s no longer just about the constructability of a piece of infrastructure. It’s also making sure that it’s an efficient and a well-used piece of infrastructure. It’s also about adding de-constructability for its renewal. Maybe modularisation is a future way of getting there. All that leads to a sort of systems thinking approach as opposed to a project-by-project design and build approach. Circularity will be there when we’ve got that full regenerative sort of design well built in and at the same time, we focus on what we can do now in terms of recycling and reuse of problematic waste materials,” he added.

KEY CHALLENGES AHEAD Ainsley Simpson, the Infrastructure Sustainability Council’s Chief Executive Officer, says the challenges to driving more circular economy, and particularly more innovation, across the infrastructure sector are many-fold and progressing with varying pace across different states.

The first challenge to overcome, she says, is a lack of consistent policy objectives.

“Historically, there has been inconsistent policy objectives around such things as consideration of innovative and recycled materials across infrastructure projects,” she says.

“However, the introduction of the National Waste Policy Action Plan has created a level playing field with a call to action for all levels of government to increase recycled content use in what they do and to show

that leadership through their procurement practises. The adoption of the action plan by all levels of government, including state and local, is a very useful way to overcome the very first challenge around inconsistent policy objectives.”

The next challenge, she says, is tried and tested specifications.

“If we are going to experiment, if we are going to look at adopting new technologies, new materials and new design techniques, we have to accept that experimentation and some degree of failure is part of the process and that the faster we embrace that, the faster we’ll learn,” she says.

The critical importance of safety issues and considering long-term risks in adopting new technologies is not, however, lost on her.

“The assets we build today could be in use for the next 100 years, so we don’t want to be making short-term decisions. At the same time, we need to embrace innovation. So, finding a healthy balance between doing what we’ve always done and finding the right place for demonstration projects and experimental techniques is really important. There are some really good examples of where this is happening across the country.”

The next important step, she says, is around risk allocation.

“Because we are dealing with these longlife assets, including a wide range of blue and green assets that are under management, the uncertainty in trying out new things can’t all be borne by the asset owner. Nor can it all be borne by the design team or the contractor. There needs to be a balance in how the added level of risk is allocated and a reasonable degree of appropriation, making innovation a practical reality.”

Ms Simpson says capability building throughout the supply chain will also contribute to improved circular economy practices within the sector.

“I think there is deep value in having capability building and awareness creation in policy, planning and procurement. If you send a strong market signal about what is going to be expected and when it is going to be expected, the supply chain will meet the demand. But from a client’s perspective, it’s really important that those signals are clear and strong and consistent.”

Finally, she emphasises that the “steep learning curve” in implementing circular economy and innovation across infrastructure projects could be eased with positive knowledge sharing and incentivising innovation.

“When we talk about innovation in infrastructure, we are talking about a spectrum, starting anywhere from an incremental improvement, all the way to the invention side of the spectrum. In the infrastructure sector, innovations on the invention side of the spectrum do not happen all that often. So, I think it’s healthy for us to be looking at a whole different range of innovations and share those whenever they do come about so that other people can start adopting them more quickly,” she says.

“For its part, the Infrastructure Sustainability Council will be conducting its member survey again this year and publishing the results at our next Future Focus Forum to share some of the successful examples from around the industry. This will also be followed by series of events to share the critical outcomes we have seen with those enablers, so that we can reward and incentivise technologies that have been tested and passed the pilot phase and can be rapidly scaled up.”

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